


And Within Your Furnace Heart

by Theboys



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anal Sex, Dubious Consent, M/M, Mental Instability, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-19
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-05-02 10:01:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5244158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theboys/pseuds/Theboys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is how it feels to be Sam Winchester. Your life is not your own.<br/>You already know you’re going to let it eat you up, in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Within Your Furnace Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I got the idea for this story from the novelization of Revenge of the Sith, by Matthew Stover, because I'm a giant nerd. I'm obsessed with the way that he describes Anakin's internal downfall, and so I took a page out of his book (literally) when describing Sam throughout this fic. The title also came from the book as well.

It doesn’t start out like that, honestly.

Sam’s just turned upside down at the thought of not being there, not being next to Dean when he goes on a hunt, when he leaves for a bar, when he exits the room in general.

Sam doesn’t know what it says about him that his wires are all criss-crossed this way, Trinity of Dean, Dean, Dean.

This is what it feels like to be Sam Winchester.

-

He’s fourteen when he blows Jason Sanders behind the bleachers in Marietta, Georgia. Jason’s a runningback, and Sam knows it, chose him because he wanted the dick-heavy taste of sweat on his tongue, coating the ridged roof of his mouth like a shot. He likes the cliché.

Sanders is a good kid, Bible-thumping, Hellfire-frightened good, and he’s so nice to Sam when he looks down, when he angles his black eyes into Sam’s upturned face, where he’s gagging on Jason’s cock and his own pride.

Chokes on it for show, he can slide it deeper than his fucking tonsils, inhale until Jason’s just resting inside him like an offering.

Jason’s breath comes out in stutters, hands clutching the air reflexively, like he’s scared that he might catch and grab.

Sam wants Jason’s hands, wants them to pull and pluck and grasp until Sam can understand who he’s giving himself to, can feel it in his bones.

Jason tugs at the soft ends of Sam’s hair, and Sam mewls out his appreciation, makes the blowjob that much more sloppy. He drags his tongue around the spit-slick crown, runs the tip over the edge of the frenulum until Jason’s hips are humping the air, dagger of his cock jammed down Sam’s willing throat.

Jason comes like a freight train, and Sam’s always had a good sense of timing, locks his hands around Jason’s hips so he remains upright.

Sam suckles until Jason’s grunting above him, half-heartedly shoving at Sam’s shoulders, blades of flesh pressing against Jason’s insistent palms.

Sam tucks him away when he’s done, drags his thumb across the slit to check for any excess.

Jason whimpers.

“Jesus, Sam,” he breathes, open and frank, and his gaze is soft and guileless. Jason’s pretty. Sam picks them how he likes them, and Jason’s not as tall as him, but that’s alright, too. He’s 6’0 in the ninth grade, doesn’t think that’s how it’s supposed to work.

Sam’s knees creak with long nights and old hunts, and he’s a dying man in this life.

“That what you gonna think about?” Sam presses, shoves his body into the lax of Jason’s and wraps slim arms around Jason’s neck.

“When Katie’s ass up for you, gonna think about my mouth on your dick?” Sam hisses, and he knows what that does, the way Jason’s face twists when he thinks about his girlfriend, what this means for her and what it says about him.

“Winchester, fucking Christ, man.” Sam hears the anger in his voice, like edge of a brand, but it’s tempered when Sam feels the tell-tale jump of Jason’s dick against his thigh.

Sam’s so hard he could break glass.

“Think about you turning ass up for me,” Sam breathes, the twisted conch-shell of Jason’s ear, and Sam flicks out his tongue, search for salt.

Jason’s head thunks back and connects with nothing, exposes the milk column of his throat, tanned down to the neckline of his uniform.

Sam lets him go after that.

He doesn’t let himself come until his body is twirled in the sheets of their shared bed, and he can taste the milky-sweet of Jason’s release, can smell gun-oil and graveyard dirt in the covers.

He sprays his chest with it, limbs twitching with phantom aftershocks, humps against the non-pressure of air.

It’s then that he understands.

-

This is how it feels to be Sam Winchester, despicable.

You’re the way you are for a reason.

You wish that whatever God exists, He hadn’t let you figure out the why.

You already know you’re going to let it eat you up, in the end.

-

Dean comes home alone.

He’s bent all out of shape, but not really injured, not like Sam’s seen him before, broken arm and twisted leg til he can’t stand upright and adopts it as a posture of choice.

He’s lean, eighteen years old, and the lines Sam thinks’ll be there when he’s older haven’t yet begun, but his eyes are field-bright against the dirt and tan of his skin.

Sam thinks he’s better off dead than being like this, shaped like this in the square of Winchester life, deformed as he is.

Dean’s holding his shoulder kind of stiff, but otherwise, it’s not so bad, doesn’t ache enough for him to wince away tears.

His face cracks open when he sees Sam, hunched over his books like a monk, and Sam’s spine tingles whenever Dean’s near, he can’t help the way he’s built.

“S’like four in the morning, Sammy. You gotta cover the whole textbook tonight?” Dean’s favoring his right side, and Sam’s up like a shot, curls his hand around Dean’s waist.

“Can’t sleep,” Sam murmurs, doesn’t bother to remind Dean that he sleeps for shit when Dean’s not there, spends his days mainlining coffee and adderall, burns himself up bright with dick until he’s functioning within his own self-made parameters.

That’s his own business.

Dean falls against the bed, and rocks back upright. He looks behind him accusingly, stiffens his spine and strides forward a few paces. “Sammy. Gimme a shot of Jack, will ya?” It’s quiet, like Dean doesn’t wanna ask for it, wants to grab for it himself.

He’s hurting a little more than he wants to admit, then.

Sam flings his body alongside Dean’s in answer, twists his arms along Dean’s ribcage. Dean’s air slides out of his lungs on a wave of pain, but he doesn’t push Sam away, clings a little tighter to his shoulder.

“Shit, Sammy,” Dean mutters, drags them over to the bed and lowers himself onto it gracelessly, right arm stiff to his side.

Sam releases him on the way down, allows Dean to breathe. His brother thanks him for it, Sam can see it in the grip of his jaw, the way his head faces down and away.

Sam wavers there, and it’s sharp in his gut, breaks him down into shards on the inside, cause of what he is. Can see the way Dean holds himself together

_upright, apart_

and Sam rocks backwards, slaps the back of his knee against the exposed elbow of the chair, knocks it back a few paces.

“S’mmy?” Dean slurs, and he’s tired, gotta be exhausted, because he drove back without Dad, and he’s taut as chicken wire on his right side. Did he hide it better than usual or was Sam not looking hard enough?

That’s not supposed to be what scares him about the night.

Sam’s hand slips four times when he pours the shot, it’s in a mug cause he can’t find any glasses, and the idea makes him a little hysterical, ties his breath up in a bow to rest at the top of his throat.

Might be a double shot, Sam thinks as he presses it into Dean’s palm, curves his hand to fit under the base of Dean’s skull and lifts.

Dean’s exhausted, opens his mouth wide enough to accept and swallow, and turns listless green toward Sam, burns him up good with his thanks.

Sam bends his body down onto the edge of the bed, scratch of dry sheets curled up into the trap of his fists.

Dean’s face is slick with sweat, Sam can see it curling up against his lashes, fighting a losing battle for dominance. Sam twists his hand out of the covers and lays it against Dean’s forehead, feels the flame of fever licking up the edge of his palm, blaze down his arm.

Sam pauses for a second, huffs in his air like paint, chokes on it, and then stands, knocking his legs apart to move.

He’s walking so quickly he knocks things over, Dean’s mug takes the first tumble, shatters against the ground in a song of ceramic. His chair is next, shoved away from the maelstrom of his body, and he’s gathering the wool blanket from the edge of the couch.

He slings it heavily across Dean’s prone body, runs around to the opposite edge of the bed to tuck Dean into the burrito, pinch the blanket in under the shelf of Dean’s body, flame-driven to the touch.

Dean runs hot and then chilled when he’s sick, and he’ll fight his way out of every layer if Sam doesn’t lock him up tight, suffocate him in his own sweat.

Sam’s got to move quick, bury his brother alive and pray, because Dean’ll leave himself exposed otherwise, ask how Sam’s doing, how he’s been, what’s he need.

Sam strips out of his jacket and tosses that on top too; Dad owns three jackets total and those join the inferno, shoved up so far into Dean’s neck that’s he’s got to be smelling the Hunt and the Cause in his damn dreams.

Sam tucks his legs up under his body, bends himself so that he fits, even though the dull ache of splintered bone and thin skin persists no matter what.

When Dean tires from the first fight, Sam’ll tuck himself around his brother until he falls back asleep, slick of his body ablaze against Sam’s leaner one. Sam’ll duck his head in the nape of Dean’s neck and burn in his own flame.

-

This is how it feels to be Sam Winchester, uncertain.

You don’t know how to do this.

You don’t expect to figure it out magically, you’ve always been too much of a realist to think that.

But also, you have a little hope. Dean taught you how to hold onto that, and it’ll be your undoing.

-

Sam plays house when John’s not home, opens up his arms and his doors to his almost-friends, and Dean looks at him, but doesn’t say anything.

Dean’s more of himself when it’s them alone, and he’s quieter than people give him credit for. His lips don’t shape around words so well, they stick in Dean’s mouth and congeal to the sides, and they’re messy, spit-wet and tacky when he shoves them out too quickly.

They’re in a rental house that belongs to one of Dad’s old military buddies. He’s still overseas, or maybe he’s in rehab, Sam doesn’t rightly remember, but he knows he likes it here. It’s quiet.

Lynchburg, Virginia’s not small, not by any means, and it’s rich in historical significance, something that makes Sam weak at the knees, and Dean snort at him indulgently.

Thomas Jefferson had a house near here, and Sam’s been angling for a visit ever since they set foot in the city, made a few friends at Heritage High School.

Sam’s doing better, doesn’t feel the raw-open of sour meat in his chest as often, looks away from his brother faster than before, cause he’s not a masochist, and he won’t be made to live this way. This isn’t what he needs.

Dean lurks steady when Sam’s friends come over, Harry, Steph, and Cory, and posts himself up against the couch, pseudo-relaxed sprawl as he consumes hour after hour of basketball coverage, knows Dean bleeds football through and through.

Steph has tits the size of melons, cantaloupes, Dean admonishes, but Sam can’t think of anything past the way they move when she walks, cumbersome and heavy against the small of her spine. He wants to heft the weight, never been brave enough to run his fingers down into the soft of a girl.

Always searched for boys who looked like him, chased and dirty, so quiet in the shadows, because, what are they?

She’s tiny, 5’1 if that, and she’s pretty, something that Dean tells him he’s lucky to score, “with tits that fucking huge, Sammy,”

and Sam kind of wants to punch him in the solar plexus, grind down on the troll-bridge of his brothers ribs, but he settles for calling Dean a piece of shit, and the insult does nothing to shove it down back into his chest where it belongs.

Sam thinks his friends here are so blessedly normal cause he’s starting to fill out more, look a little more like a Winchester and less like a kid playing dress-up to where he can’t think straight, won’t understand.

Steph asks him about Dean the third time he invites them all over, and only she shows up, cause Cory and Harry have practice.

Sam can hear Dean snort from the living room when Steph tells him that, tips her brown head back to meet the cool of his gaze, because he makes his living from lies. This boy she thinks she likes, the way her body’s twisted around the tree of his, sinewy and supple, he’s a conglomerate of falsehoods.

He’s made of picked apart half-truths and disgust. He’s motherless, fatherless on the weekday, got a brother that’s too close and too far in unison, watching them like he’s got nothing better to do, Rolling Rock twisting in the cup of his hand.

“Never had practice on Mondays before,” Sam says coolly, because he hates being played with. Rather she topple the inch or so down to her knees and take his dick into her mouth, get it shiny-wet with spit the way everyone seems to like it, and get to it.

Steph grins though, and she’s brighter that way, fucking comet in his living room, and Sam steps back, frightened. His lower back smacks against the rise of the chair, and he wraps a hand around it, his eyes scanning above Steph’s head to meet Dean’s eyes.

His brother’s face is twisted with mirth, tips his beer in Sam’s direction and then tilts it to his open mouth.

Sam’s eyes twitch and they’re burning steel-heavy, and then Steph tugs at his hand and they’re back.

“Wanna go upstairs,” she’s saying, and it’s more than that, there’s a classy little lie woven in there, Sam’s sure.

_don’t wanna bother your brother when we’re quizzing each other_

and if Sam had a quarter of the sense God gave a lamb, he’d tangle his sweat-warm hands with hers and follow, take her upstairs and pull her apart, open her legs and her mouth and be her God, sacrilegious in a way he doesn’t believe in.

“M’brother’s here,” Sam says, low, says it the way he does when he’s taking apart guys, the slow stutter of warm insecurity but cremation-hot want, and then he cups his hand around her cheek, flushed with tan and blood.

“I’d be quiet,” she breathes, and she’s not a whore, Sam thinks, invades his thoughts roughly, so that his words have to slide over and make a hole for the truth. She’s not. She’s just tired of waiting on him to make the first move, and she wants him.

Sam twitches in his sweatpants, and he’s halfway to moving his palm south, wants to jerk his dick in his hand, watch the way she’ll reach out for it, but he’s not there. He’s not like that, and he wants to remain that way.

“Don’t want you quiet,” Sam replies, and that’s a full on honesty. If he was to take this girl, he would want to feel his way around her, make her scream for him, press her body into the mattress and open her up til she’s crying on his dick, his mouth, the open v of his fingers in her cunt.

Sam likes his facts dried and salted, ready and hanging from the ceiling for consumption.

She’s nodding, head bracketed against her shoulders, catch and release, and when Sam looks beyond her for Dean, there’s a can of Rolling Rock on the couch, and the TV’s gone silent.

-

This is how it feels to be Sam Winchester, not enough.

Your heart isn’t your own, and it doesn’t beat in any rhythm that’s familiar to you.

It feels like ice worms its way into your cavities and makes a home there, and it won’t melt, despite the fact that you’re flayed and burnt on the inside.

He looks at you and you know what you’re supposed to see.

You see it, that’s never been the issue.

The problem is, you’ve never been ashamed of what you feel.

-

John’s in between hunts, healing up at Bobby’s when Sam drinks his first Jagerbomb.

He has five more directly after and they wash through him like thick black tar, and he thinks vaguely that it would taste like sewage on the return trip.

Sam’s celebrating passing his AP exams, which is nerdy enough in its own right, but he’s at an honest-to-God party and even though most of his friends are drinking for the same reason; they’re generally here to get fucked up.

It’s early July, and Sam’s just turned sixteen, and his head lolls over side of the couch, because he’s counting the beams in the ceiling of Priest’s basement.

Priest is eighteen, and today is his birthday. Priest’s never set foot in an AP class in his life, and Sam doesn’t think he intends to start, no matter how many of them are here tonight.

Sam joined the basketball team this year, even though Dean says he’s gonna be fucking everyone over if he just up and leaves when they have to move again.

Sam tells him that it’s not his job to worry about their season, especially when he’s supposed to spend the rest of his time worrying about their safety.

Dean looks at him strangely, his eyes are numb and green and he doesn’t say anything after that, shrugs and asks if Sammy’s just doing it so he can score a cheerleader or three?

Priest comes downstairs then, and he’s stumbling in and over himself like a tidal wave of liquor and shame. Taller than Sam and it’s strange, but he’s not looking up or left or to the side or anything that would entail him opening his eyes at all.

Soundgarden is floating in his head, but he doesn’t think that’s what’s playing upstairs right now. He can’t even recall where he last heard it, Dean wouldn’t allow him to play it, corrupt speakers and air with his shitty music.

Priest looks surprised to see him here, alone in his basement, but Sam’s tired, can’t make his limbs cooperate and turn him upright.

“Father,” Sam slurs, and he hears Priest’s answering grunt. They’ve been calling Priest Father since he was a kid, apparently, and they call him that on the court too, Sam spares a moment for wishing that he had a nickname like that, and people worth giving it to him, but it does no good to wallow. Not that that’s ever stopped Sam.

Priest collapses on the couch beside him, pressing the stuffing out from the split seams of the cushion. It’s throwaway furniture, and Priest’s parents don’t really care what happens to it.

“What’re you doing down here man?” Priest slurs, and his tongue is barely coherent, slick over the words like vanilla ice cream.

Sam waves a hand negligently. “Loud, man,” Sam says succinctly, and then Priest drops his brown head back against the shelf of the couch.

Sam’s legs are tangled underneath the loose bridge of Priest’s and he can’t move, he feels caged in and he doesn’t like it, wants to strike out but he knows he doesn’t have the coordination for it.

Sam’s eyes follow the long line of Priest’s body, black basketball shorts and a long-sleeve tee, courtesy of their high school.

Sam’s thigh twitches from where it’s locked against the couch, and then he’s upright, head swimming and heavy in his bones.

“Go upstairs man, s’your birthday.” Sam means to say that, but he’s not sure it comes out legibly. Priest seems to understand it, regardless. “S’loud, Sammy,” Priest says, slinging his own words back at him, and Sam knocks his knuckles against Priest’s head in a sad approximation of anger.

“Walk it off Priest,” Sam grunts, and follows the lazy stretch of Priest’s neck as he turns in Sam’s direction.

“What’re you doin’ here, man?” Priest asks again, but Sam can’t help but think he’s asking something else, something that Sam doesn’t have a ready answer for.

Priest’s dark-blue eyes are red-rimmed, even white teeth with a slightly crooked one hidden by his inner cheek. Sam’s not thinking when he leans forward, catches the hook of Priest’s hair in his palm.

Sam’s heart thumps strangely and then gives out entirely, but Priest’s head curves in his palm and now Sam’s rent open, drops his hands down to curl around Priest’s waist, drags him forward to splay across Sam’s lap like Christmas.

“Took long enough,” Priest says, and his face is flushed with drink and arousal, and Sam wants to cut back, say that he and Priest are hanging out in that closet together, there’s no way that one of them gave the other enough hints to think about finally opening the door.

“What the fuck’s wrong with you,” Sam asks, but he doesn’t really care, doesn’t want to actually know why he’s been allowed this.

Priest levers himself up and smacks his body back down onto Sam’s lap entirely, drags his legs so that they widen around Sam’s hips. Priest rises up on knees and thighs and then grinds back down, and Sam hasn’t been breathing this entire time.

“Been gagging for it,” Sam says, and Priest slides forward on a twirl of his hips, slides his face into Sam’s clavicle. “Woulda asked you,” Priest breathes, and Sam locks his hands around the taut skin of Priest’s hips, dips his thumbs up under the fabric to dig nail-marks into the flesh.

Priest jumps at the bite of pain and then whimpers in gratitude. Sam knows what that sounds like. “Wanted you to, ever since you joined the team.” Priest sounds sober and smashed in equal measures, and Sam understands that it’s the bright of want that’s giving him courage, that’s allowing him to explain himself semi-decently.

Sam hadn’t thought about it one way or the other. Priest isn’t his usual type, and Sam’s trying to put that behind him, stauch the quell of desire himself, or have nothing at all.

Priest’s warm in his lap though, and Sam’s not even coercing anyone. It’s pretty freely given.

Sam shoves his hands down the back of Priest’s basketball shorts to cup at his ass, and there’s no finesse, Sam’s too fucked up for that. He parts the globes roughly, and Priest’s voice hitches above him. Sam runs his thumb down the line of Priest’s crack, and Sam chuckles when he feels Priest’s body tremble.

“Gonna do it?” Priest asks, and Sam thinks that he might have meant for that to sound more intimidating than it did, but all Sam can hear is the rain-thin gasp of want, and Sam’s more than ready to give.

Sam keeps one palm down Priest’s shorts, pulls the other up and out of the warmth. Priest makes a dismayed noise, but then Sam’s tapping his mouth with his index and middle. Priest opens wide, drags his tongue around the webbing of Sam’s fingers and deepthroats him with a cautionary gag.

Sam’s hips hitch up, and it’s like his consciousness slams back into his body with the movement. He can feel the brand of his dick in between Priest’s cheeks, and he grinds smoothly, grins against Priest’s face.

Priest’s mouth pops open to gasp, and Sam watches the way his eyes flutter open and shut like a baby bird’s wings.

Sam’s fingers are numb and wet when he dislodges them, and he doesn’t waste any time, holds the elastic of Priest’s shorts open and away so he can push his wet fingers up against Priest’s hole. He rubs and taps for a second before punching through with two fingers to start.

It’s wet-tight and burning, but all Sam can hear is the way Priest’s breath hitches, and then his mouth opens on pleas.

“Jesus, Sam, jus’ fuck me. Fuck.” Priest says, swirling his hips as Sam punches his fingers in farther, wiggles them together and then drags them apart.

“Rip you up inside, Priest,” Sam says, removes his other hand so that he can splay his palm on the center of Priest’s back, keep him upright.

“I’d give it to you,” Sam continues, floodgates be damned. “Shit, if I’da known, I’d’ve let you choke on it at practice.” Sam offers, voice low.

Priest nods against his neck, says yes four times and pushes his ass down further, even though Sam’s got no inch of fingers left to give.

Sam can feel the warmth from Priest’s dick against his lower abdomen, the catch and glide as the sticky tip slaps against Sam’s t-shirt.

He’s too focused on the pretty way Priest digs his fingernails into Sam’s shoulder blades to hear the noise coming from the party upstairs. He pulls his fingers out until only the tips keep Priest open for his dick, and the whine he lets out makes Sam growl in response.

Sam knocks Priest’s head to the side with his own forehead, and then drags his teeth down the vulnerable column of neck. Priest is begging now, and it does something wild to Sam’s insides. Fractures them, maybe.

His teeth are gnawing at the skin when he hears his brother.

It makes his dick stiffer than before, and Priest feels it, grinds down and pushes back, whimpers into Sam’s skin like a prayer.

“Sammy!”

Sam ignores it, bounces Priest on his lap, screws his fingers in harder, taps against the nerves inside and Priest almost rocks right off of Sam’s lap.

“C’mere,” Sam says, and then the sounds of the party amplify as the door to the basement opens. Sam hears the strains of My Name Is echo through the house.

Priest sits up, his eyes wild and unfocused, even as he keeps up his slow slides onto Sam’s fingers. “Sam?” He says, and Sam feels rush of something foreign and strangling in his throat.

Sam presses Priest’s head back down to his neck with a murmur of reassurance.

He nudges his prostate again and hears the one-two of Dean’s boots against the basement stairs.

“Sammy!” He hears, too loud in the enclosed silence of the empty room, and Sam rubs his fingers in a heavy circle within Priest’s hole, and manages to look up right as Dean rounds the corner, eyes bright with fear.

Priest shivers against him and then he’s coming, staining the hem of Sam’s shirt, tops of Sam’s shorts with his come. He keens so loudly that Dean pauses, and his eyes widen when he catches sight of the display.

Sam wants to turn away from his brother’s face, but he can’t, so he lets Priest ride it out in his lap, pulls his fingers out slowly. Priest collapses against his chest and Sam’s still hard enough to cut diamonds.

“Dad’s coming home tomorrow,” Dean says, face blank and eyes somehow still trained only on Sam’s face.

It sounds crooked in this space of not-home, but Sam only nods thoughtfully. Sam picks Priest up then, pulls his shorts back up and deposits him down on the couch as he stands. He’s abruptly aware of the warm-chill of come on his stomach, but Priest is more than halfway to sleep.

“Sam?” Priest asks again, and Sam shoves a pillow up underneath his head.

Sam takes the stairs ahead of Dean. “I better pack then.” Sam says, without looking behind him.

He’s done looking at Dean.

-

This is how it feels to be Sam Winchester, caught.

You aren’t sure when it twisted ‘round itself like a vine, and you don’t think the knowing could’ve stopped anything, really.

You hate him.

It’s silvery with light, but you can see the threads of black that run through it regardless.

It’s your madness, and it consumes.

-

Dean takes him to the Anasazi Heritage Museum when they’re in Colorado, and Dean’s benched from starting because he can barely take any of his weight on his left leg after a Daeva flung him into a wall and then let his body fall a couple feet further down.

He’s supposed to use crutches, but Sam notes that Dean’s just using him instead. He wants to be angrier, but it’s not really disagreeable, and it makes Dean touch him in a way he hasn’t since he watched Priest come all over Sam in North Carolina three months ago.

Dean’s teased him for it mercilessly, and there’s a hard line to the cajoling, like a serrated knife that Dean can’t help flinging every so often.

Sam braces himself for it, and in the abuse, he hardens.

“You devil, you.” Dean says, claps him on the back so hard that Sam thinks he would topple over if he wasn’t built so tall from running and lifting and killing.

“Bet you woulda fucked him right on that couch, if I hadn’t cockblocked you.” Dean says one night, two weeks after, heavy in his cups after what should’ve been a routine salt and burn, but turned ugly ‘cause the wife and husband were in on it together.

Sam’s holding his second beer close to his chest, but he doesn’t want to drink. He doesn’t want to go so numb he can’t defend himself.

“Shut up, Dean. It wasn’t like that.” Sam says wearily, but he doesn’t know any different words to explain himself.

“Looked like it, Sammy. Looked like you were just getting to the good part.” Dean remarks, tilts his head back on air and closes his eyes. Sam watches him swallow with the same sort of detached fascination one watches a spider catch prey.

“Coulda told me, you know,” Dean whispers, and Sam almost misses it for the ongoing roar in his ears. “What?” Sam says stupidly, and Dean waves his hand around in the air without opening his eyes or moving his head.

“I never would’ve hated you, Sam. Not ever.” Dean’s so firm that Sam can barely hear the tilt in his voice, and he wants to laugh all over Dean’s neck and body.

“Didn’t think you would,” Sam settles for saying dryly, and Dean’s nodding, like he just made some huge point.

Sam wants to tell him that hate and love have the same flavor.

So Sam keeps one hand around Dean’s waist, (not waist, stomach, Dean reminds him) and then Dean slings his arm around Sam’s neck, which is harder to reach now that Sam’s gotten so tall.

Dean’s grip loosens when they’re standing still, but tightens to suffocation when they’re walking, in so much pain that he doesn’t have any mental function to spare for faking it.

Sam doesn’t wanna do this, not with Dean fucked to shit, but his brother insists on it, says he doesn’t know when they’ll be back in Colorado, and if Sam could say thank you instead of complaining so damn much, maybe it’d be easier.

Sam nods his thanks and proceeds to drag Dean around the Lowry Pueblo, Canyon of the Ancients. Dean’s a burning line of muscle next to him, and Sam feels a little like he’s in training rather than hanging out with his brother.

Dean doesn’t say much, which is weird, but Sam knows that he’s in way too much pain to talk.

Sam taps out for Dean, settles them in the shade and glances up at the glass between him and ancient Anasazi artifacts.

Dean’s head hangs low, almost touching his collarbone, and Sam’s heart clenches in his chest. It’s there, just as violent as it was before, and he wants to die for ever thinking he could quench it and lock it up.

Dean sways in place and Sam drags him closer before he can help himself.

Dean grunts out his displeasure and then falls silent, labored breathing the only thing between them.

“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Sam says without heat, and Dean laughs. “Matter of opinion, Sammy.” Sam wants to push his way inside Dean until they’re twisted so tangled that you’ll have to rip them apart for survival.

“Let’s go home.” Sam says, and Dean flips his head up in anger. “Why? You got a hard-on for this shit, why you trying to leave?” Dean spits it out with a wince of pain, and Sam bites down all the angry words he wants to say.

“Don’t wanna drag you around the whole museum just so I can have fun, Dean. You shouldn’t even be walking like this.” Sam knows that Dean’s not gonna accept it, but it’s the truth.

“Could’ve went alone, Sam. You should’ve told me that you didn’t want me to come.” Sam wants to slap his brother, but he manfully refrains.

“Jesus, shut the fuck up Dean.” Sam says. “If you can make it home, I’ll go back out and get tacos.”

That earns him a glare from Dean about Dean not being bitch-made, and then Sam’s brother grins against all reason, feral showing of teeth.

“Don’t have to bribe me into bed Sammy, m’not a virgin.” Dean says, twitch of mirth in his jaw that’s absent from his eyes.

Sam takes them home and thinks of shared bathrooms and science labs and breathes through his mouth.

-

This is how it feels to be Sam Winchester, Dean’s little brother.

The first stage is acceptance, but you’ve never progressed any further than that.

You always accepted, took you longer to understand.

You recall that these are the stages of grief that you’re trying to emulate, and you realize that you’ve got to feel the loss to move forward.

You can’t lose what he won’t give you.

-

Sam shouldn’t be surprised that Dean’s first question is whether or not he wants a ride to the bus station.

It’s just like him, face empty and blank and full of death, and Sam wants to crack it open at the seams and pull Dean’s intestines out alongside his emotions.

He’ll tell Dad tomorrow, because he’d like to have a place to sleep before he has to hit the road, make the long ass drive to Stanford in early August.

It’s hot here and it’ll be hotter there, and Sam thinks it’s good he has cut offs and castaways in plenty.

Dean sits on the edge of his bed, legs open on careful. His head is looking right up into Sam’s eyes, and his hands are clasped together loosely, placating.

“Don’t need to,” Sam rushes out, quick, before he can accept and pull himself back into the vortex of his brother, where he’ll suffocate and die.

Dean’s eyes flicker with the first instance of _something_ since this all began, and Sam reaches out for it, grasping at straws.

“That it? You done now?” Sam says, and he’s watching himself, doesn’t recognize this boy.

Dean’s brow wrinkles and he looks more confused than angry. “What? What?” Dean repeats, stupidly, Sam thinks, meanly.

“You did your duty. You asked. Anything else we need to cover?” Sam’s mouth is a wound and he can’t stitch it shut, keeps on dripping filth and pus.

Dean’s not angry, still, and that does something else to Sam’s insides, and he backs up a step.

“Sammy, I just wanna know you’re gonna be okay.” Dean says. “I can send you money,” Dean continues, detached, talking to himself. “I got five here, right now, I been saving it for Christmas, but you might as well take it now.” Dean’s nodding to himself like a wind-up doll.

“It was yours anyway, it’ll just be early.” Dean says with finality, like now that he’s worked it out in his head it’ll stand in theory.

Sam’s mouth isn’t working, but his hands sure are, and he drags Dean upright by his neck and squeezes until Dean’s hand comes up to wrap around Sam’s own.

His brother doesn’t even claw, and Sam watches as Dean’s face fills with the red of blood, asphyxiation.

Sam drops Dean to the floor in disgust, and it curls up, dead and charred in his stomach. “Jesus, Dean. Fuck you.” The words taste sour in Sam’s mouth, but Dean’s eyes look up and away.

“I ain’t done nothing, Sam,” Dean says, hauls in his air. “This is all you. This is you.” Dean says.

Sam ruptures then, and he realizes he hadn’t known how much he’d festered all over his bones before now.

“You’re the worst of me, Dean,” Sam says, whips his words out like knives, but now he’s started. “And you don’t even care enough to fix me, when you know I’m like this, when I’m bent all wrong for anyone but you.” Sam says.

Dean’s face is pale and drawn, and his mouth is open but locked. “You won’t even give me anything. You--you fucking distract me with one hand, fuck me over with the other!” Sam yells, and then he’s laughing, and it’s an ugly hysterical thing.

“Sammy. Sammy,” Sam hears, and Dean’s standing, walking towards him with palms up in surrender. Sam’s moving then, same way his big brother taught him, pins Dean to the wall and breathes in around the fact that Dean’s smaller than him now, weighs less.

Dean’s eyes are wide and there’s something like fear in them, clinging to lashes.

“Sammy,” he tries again, that horrible tone of voice that makes Sam think Dean’s known. Always.

“M’leaving, Dean. M’leaving and I’m never fucking ever coming back.” Sam says, rests his forehead against Dean’s, presses his body tighter against his brother’s, sandwiching him with the wall.

Dean’s breath is wet, and Sam’s hips jerk forward without his permission, and it brings Dean in contact with Sam’s dick, sloppy hard and wet against Dean’s thigh.

Dean squirms, something like a cry leaks out of his throat.

“Sammy,” he says, and God, is that the only word he knows? Sam pushes forward with intent, runs his hand down the seam of Dean’s pants to catch Dean’s dick from where it’s trapped between the two of them.

It’s half-hard and it grows under Sam’s hand, and when Sam looks up at Dean, his brother looks terrified, half out of his mind with fear, and somewhere in his heart, Sam smiles.

He can feel, then.

Sam makes his decision quickly at that, and once it’s made, he never half-asses anything.

He spins Dean around, slamming his body against the plaster, jerks Dean’s shorts down to collect at his ankles, his bare feet.

“Sammy, shit, Sammy, please man, you gotta stop.” Dean’s voice is wet, and he’s braced up by his cheek and his hands on the wall, ass arched out into Sam’s pelvis.

Sam studies the cream of Dean’s skin, the round of his ass and the way it jerks under Sam’s hungry gaze.

“You didn’t ask what I wanted,” Sam says thoughtfully. “You thought you knew. You always thought you knew.”

Dean rocks his body back then, forceful effort to dislodge Sam, but Sam won’t have that. Dean’s gonna _talk_ , so help him God.

“Tell me.” Sam hisses, bites the words out from between his teeth, shoves his pelvis against Dean’s ass and grinds in a dirty-slow circle. “Tell me you won’t give me this. Tell me you don’t want me.” Sam doesn’t know who he is, can see himself dying.

Dean only breathes for a second, and then the fight leaves his body. He sags against the wall, and Dean’s face is damp.

Sam rears back, but there’s no triumph in the motion, in the non-declaration of no.

There’s nothing but the general disease of his own heart, that he’s been carrying around since he knew how to see his own brother.

Sam doesn’t want to savor this.

He wants to have it and hold it, and watch it break in his hands, the way everything he loves knows how to do.

Sam licks a stripe up his palm and unbuttons his jeans with one hand. He keeps the other hand against Dean’s back, keeps him locked against the wall, and pulls his dick out of the confines of his boxers.

He smears the spit around the head, leans down further so that he’s eye-level with Dean’s hole. He removes his hand from Dean’s spine and parts Dean’s ass open, spits on the opening and watches it wink in surprise.

Dean jerks in place, but doesn’t make a sound, and then Sam presses his thumb on in, twirls it in a circle until shoving it in entirely.

Dean grunts above him and Sam spits around the digit again, pushes his index inside way too quickly afterwards.

Sam’s changing his mind. He’s gotta leave after this. He can’t afford to stay. Not after he gets this.

Sam stretches him painfully, but two fingers isn’t enough, but that’s all Sam has the wherewithal to stand right now.

Sam straightens up, looms over Dean and rests his chin on Dean’s shoulder, breathes hot and heavy into Dean’s ear. Sam’s brother is stiff as a board, but his eyes are shut, lower lip caught tightly between his teeth.

Sam presses on home, feels the give of the hole and watches in wonderment as Dean cries, tears shove themselves from Dean’s clenched eyelids, but his brother doesn’t make a stray sound, doesn’t even breathe.

Sam rocks his hips forward once and plummets to the base, and he feels like his dick’s gonna snap off inside of his brother, it’s so damn tight.

Sam wants to move, fuck it all out, but he can’t do that, not with Dean’s eyes shut off and closed. Sam nips at Dean’s neck, and Dean moans.

Sam’s hips fuck back in reflexively, and then Dean’s nodding. “S’okay, Sammy. You’re good.” And really, that’s all Sam needs.

He wraps his hands around Dean’s hips and pulls him forward and almost-off, and then he’s back inside. He repeats it, moves one hand from Dean’s bone to settle it possessively on Dean’s stomach, rubs around til he can feel the line of his own dick fucking Dean from within.

Dean’s making broken mewls above him, and every so often, his brother rocks back into him, like he wants and doesn’t know quite how to stop himself.

“You let me keep this,” Sam says, groans it out on a particularly brutal push in. Dean nods, wallpaper probably chaffing the side of his cheek.

“Alright, Sammy. Alright,” Dean slurs, sex-drunk and loose.

Sam reaches around and fists Dean’s cock, wants to watch his brother come before he never sees it again.

Sam’s fingers barely tangle themselves together into a fist before Dean’s coming, dick twitching and jerking in Sam’s loose grip, and Sam has to slap a hand against the wall beside Dean’s head, because he can’t believe that just happened.

Dean’s screaming above him, and then his voice gives out entirely, and he thumps against the wall so heavy that Sam’s afraid he’ll fall without Sam’s weight behind his.

Sam twirls his hips once more and then stops, blinding hot of pain and satisfaction as he empties inside of Dean, fucks all that come back within and thinks about how to keep it there. Wants Dean smelling of him, wants it sloshing around inside like a sacrifice.

When Sam slides out, Dean winces, but Sam’s not even sure he’s breathing.

Dean won’t turn around, his sweat-thick head hangs against the wall like sun-ripened fruit.

“Gonna stay, Sam?” Dean says, and his voice is gravel, like he had to shove the words out.

Sam stands up straight, pulls his zipper up and buttons his pants entirely.

“Shouldn’t have been like that,” Sam says slowly, and Dean’s spine stiffens. “You know it too,” Sam says, wonderment coloring his tone.

That makes things that much worse.

Sam’s duffel digs into his side as he opens the door, and he doesn’t answer Dean’s question as he leaves.

-

This is how it feels to be Sam Winchester, forever.

There’s nothing here.

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [a thing that happens to you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5570329) by [tamaraface](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamaraface/pseuds/tamaraface)




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